Габор Такач-Надь
April 17, 1956 - Budapest (Hungary)
About
Gábor Takács-Nagy was born in Budapest where he began to learn the violin at the age of eight. As a student at the Franz Liszt Academy, he won the First Prize at the 1979 Jeno Hubay Violin Competition, after which he continued his studies with Nathan Milstein. From 1975 to 1992, he was the founding member and leader of the renowned Takács Quartet with which he performed with such celebrated artists as Yehudi Menuhin, Mstislav Rostropovitch, Georg Solti, Isaac Stern, Paul Tortelier, Joshua Bell, James Galway Zoltan Kocsis, Gidon Kremer, András Schiff and Mikhail Pletnev, and made many recordings for Decca and Hungaroton. Mr. Takács-Nagy was awarded the Liszt Prize in 1982. In 1996, he founded the Takács Piano Trio with which he made world-premiere recordings of works by Franz Liszt, Laszlo Lajtha and Sándor Veress.
A dedicated and highly sought-after teacher, Gábor Takács-Nagy is Professor of String Quartet at the Geneva Conservatoire and regularly gives masterclasses at leading schools and academies throughout the world. In 1998, he founded the Mikrokosmos String Quartet with Zoltán Tuska, Sándor Papp and Miklós Perényi, and in 2008, they recorded the complete Bartók string quartets. Mr. Takács-Nagy began conducting in 2001, creating his own string orchestra, the Camerata Bellerive, in 2005. This ensemble is orchestra-in-residence at Geneva’s annual Festival de Bellerive of which he is also artistic director. Gábor Takács-Nagy was named Music Director of the UBS Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra. In 2008 he was appointed Principal Guest Conductor of both the Hungarian Symphony Orchestra and the MAV Symphony Orchestra in Budapest. Since September 2011, he also became the music director of Manchester Camerata, one of the UK’s leading chamber orchestras and since September 2012 is Principal Guest Conductor of the Budapest Festival Orchestra. From January 2013, he will also be Principal Artistic Partner of the Irish Chamber Orchestra.
Gábor Takács-Nagy is a dedicated and highly sought-after chamber-music teacher. He is Professor of String Quartet at the Haute Ecole de Musique in Geneva and International Chair in Chamber Music at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. In June 2012 he was awarded honorary membership of the Royal Academy of Music in London.